UFC

Vera is the son of a Filipino father, Ernesto, and an Italian-American mother, Amelia, and grew up in a family with seven boys and three girls. He was born and raised in Norfolk, Virginia, and attended Lake Taylor High School, where he excelled in wrestling and earned a four-year athletic scholarship to Old Dominion University. He however dropped out of Old Dominion after a year and a half when he felt college wasn't for him, and he enlisted in the United States Air Force.

In the Air Force, he joined the force's wrestling team and trained at the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. His military wrestling career was cut short in 1999 when he shred ligaments in his right elbow. Arthroscopic surgery repaired the ligaments but he had nerve damage from the experience, causing him to be unable to use his right arm. He was released from the Air Force on a medical discharge.

He returned to Virginia where he steadily rehabilitated his arm, and eventually was fit enough to enter the Grapplers Quest submission wrestling competitions on the east coast. There, his solitary training methods (he did not belong to a camp, and trained and cut weight on his own) caught the attention of Lloyd Irvin, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt and coach, who invited him to train with his school. At Irvin's school, he was introduced to mixed martial arts